Zoning committee to discuss Pat Station development today

August 8, 2011

At its meeting Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., the Starkville Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on a zoning change along a planned extension of Pat Station Road to accommodate a new â€śpocket neighborhood.â€ť
This neighborhood, a set of 23 detached single-family residences, calls for property at the southwestern corner of the former Pilkington Trailer Park to be re-zoned, changing from R-1, or single-family residential, to PUD, or planned unit development, according to a staff report on the commissionâ€™s agenda. State and city codes only permit the cityâ€™s zoning map to be amended if the map has an error or if changing conditions in an existing zone make an amendment desirable for orderly growth.
The staff report cites the extension of Pat Station Road as a change of conditions that justifies the change of zone. This extension, also known as East Garrard Road per a proposal by the Starkville Board of Aldermen, was conceived as an east-west corridor from Old West Point Road to North Montgomery Street to decrease public safety officialsâ€™ response time for emergencies in North Starkville.
Michael Kraker, the applicant planning the new pocket neighborhood called The Cottages at Creekside, submitted a preliminary plat for a similar development in 2008. At that time, the city sought to acquire right-of-way for the Pat Station Road extension, ultimately securing a 100-foot slice off the southern end of the trailer park property Kraker owned.
The commission will also consider a final plat for Excel West, a property planned for restaurants, retail, offices and other mixed commercial uses located at 902 1/2 Highway 12. The board of aldermen tabled a preliminary plat for Excel West in 2007 because it did not have direct roadway frontage on Highway 12 West, and the applicant, D.G. Bellevue LLC., has since revised the plat.
Next, the commission will consider a preliminary plat for Reed Place Subdivision, a set of 71 single-family residential lots and other tracts and lots spread over 37.24 acres. This plat is a revision of one approved by the commission in 2010, but the applicant, Garry Hughes, discovered Native American artifacts during his site investigation. The result is a revision shifting the plat slightly south, at the cost of one single-family residential lot.
Finally, the commission will consider another request from Hughes, approval of a preliminary plat for Bent Brook Ridge Subdivision on the south side of Yellow Jacket Drive. In 2009, Hughes submitted requests to rezone the R-1 property to R-3, or multi-family, and R-3A, or single-family medium density, and both requests were denied. Hughes now plans to develop the subdivision as a detached, single-family residential development with no zoning variances.